For instance, a technique to automatically generate a business flow by collecting and analyzing data generated in a business application system used in a company or the like in order to carryout a Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) has already been known. In this technique, because the business flow is extracted from transaction data generated by actually carrying out jobs, the business flow whose frequency is less is identified as an exceptional flow by analyzing the occurrence frequencies of the respective business flows to show this exceptional flow to the user.
In the aforementioned technique, a state of the business flow, which is currently carried out, can be grasped. However, it is impossible to automatically extract an improvement candidate of the business flow.